


When life gives you freshmen... make friends?

by Criticalpancake



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon typical friendship progression, Canon typical shadowgast, College AU, Fluff, Modern AU, No matter the universe the Mighty Nein will befriend Essek Thelyss, college shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26293663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Criticalpancake/pseuds/Criticalpancake
Summary: This was when the Mighty Nein would catch him. He really did try his best at being a good RA. When they asked him for help, he provided it with a smile on his face, even when the request was particularly annoying.“Esseeeek,” Jester said, knocking on his door. “The dining hall is closed. Can you take us to the grocery store?”OREssek is the Mighty Nein's RA in their college dorm.
Relationships: The Mighty Nein & Essek Thelyss
Comments: 21
Kudos: 158





	When life gives you freshmen... make friends?

**Author's Note:**

> Excuse my dorky title haha
> 
> Just some cute fluffy college scenes of the M9 with Essek!

Essek wasn’t exactly looking forward to his duties as an RA. After all, it required him to have personal conversations with his –– what do you call them? Wards? Dormmates? The group of freshmen he was tasked with loosely looking after. He’d rather spend his time in the lab, working on his physics research. But since his religious parents were unwilling to bankroll his science degree, he had to find housing somewhere.

He had moved in at the start of the second semester and found himself living in the midst of a tightly knit group of friends. They had stylized themselves as the _Mighty Nein_. (There were only seven of them.) They were loud and raucous. They nearly always had their doors open and were constantly hanging out together in their end of the hallway.

Essek kept his door closed. 

He studied at one of the university’s libraries most days (he had scouted out his favored library during the first month of his freshman year. It was quiet and dark, with a less traveled study area in the physics stacks). And he spent the rest of his time in the lab or in class. Unfortunately, however, the libraries, labs, and classrooms all closed at night. And that was when Essek sighed, packed his bags, and returned to the dorms.

This was when the Mighty Nein would catch him. He really did try his best at being a good RA. When they asked him for help, he provided it with a smile on his face, even when the request was particularly annoying.

“Esseeeek,” Jester said, knocking on his door. “The dining hall is closed. Can you take us to the grocery store?”

He was, of course, the only one with a car.

Essek opened the door to find Jester and Nott beaming at him with Beau leaning against the wall behind them. If Fjord were there, he may have told Beau that glaring at the person you’re asking a favor from isn’t the best route to get their help.

“If you’re hungry, the convenience store is open at this hour.” Essek was already closing his door.

“Yeah but they don’t have the flavor of ice cream I like!” Jester protested.

“And Caduceus wants to make frittatas,” Beau said, shrugging. “They don’t carry fresh veggies.”

Sighing, Essek grabbed his coat. “I presume you’re ready to go now?”

“Of course!” Jester declared, skipping down the hallway.

“What ingredients does Caduceus want?” Nott asked. Essek raised an eyebrow. It was no longer surprising to him that these seven idiots couldn’t plan to save their lives. It didn’t stop being irritating.

“Shit! DEUCES, WHAT DID YOU WANT US TO GET?!” Beau hollered down the hallway.

“It is quiet hours right now,” Essek said. The other freshmen on the floor outside of the Mighty Nein were constantly calling in noise complaints about them. Luckily, the Mighty Nein all lived at the end of the hallway so their noise could only spread so far. 

“Shit, sorry.”

Caduceus poked his head around his door. “Oh are you going now?”

Essek took a breath –– 1, 2, 3 –– and let it out –– 1, 2, 3. “I imagine that’s why they knocked on my door now as opposed to later?”

Let’s just say this wasn’t the first time he had taken them somewhere on an impromptu trip. Often, it was to the grocery store. Essek himself had little patience for cooking, but he appreciated the quality of Caduceus’s cooking over the dining hall’s miserable offerings. And while Essek always declined to eat with the Mighty Nein, they did leave him a plate whenever he drove them to get ingredients.

“Okay, I’m coming.”

In the car, Beau, Jester, and Nott loudly sang along to the radio. A few weeks ago, it would have (and did) annoy Essek. But now, it was slowly disappearing into background noise.

At the grocery store, Jester linked her arm with Essek’s and steered them toward the pastry section.

“The cupcakes are pretty good here, though not as good as that bakery downtown. We should totally go there sometime.” She grabbed two cases of cupcakes and handed them to Essek. “I’ll carry the ice cream, since I’m cold-resistant,” Jester grinned. He silently accepted them and idly wondered how much ice cream she was planning on getting if she couldn’t hold the cupcakes as well.

“What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” Jester asked, while perusing the options.

“Ah, tiramisu?” Essek hadn’t had ice cream in awhile, but he remembered liking the tiramisu gelato back home.

“Ooh sounds fancy! Hmmm, I don’t think they have it. It’s a pretty unique flavor, you know. What about blueberry?”

Essek gave a noncommittal shrug. It’s not like he was planning to join their 2 AM ice cream and frittata party.

“Perfect!” Jester grabbed four different pints, considered it a moment, and grabbed another. “Now we just need sundae toppings.”

As Jester piled sundae toppings on the cupcakes in his arms, Essek said, “Perhaps we should have grabbed a cart.” He’d suggested it earlier of course. She’d just laughed and said they didn’t need one.

“Yeah, probably!”

Back at the dorms, Caduceus asked if Essek wanted to stay and eat with them. Essek excused himself, saying he had some homework to finish before bed.

About an hour later, there was a knock at Essek’s door and he opened it to find a plate of veggie frittata on the floor next to a bowl of blueberry ice cream sundae. He smiled to himself and took them inside to eat while finishing his physics problems.

\---

One day, Essek walked into the dorm building’s study room only to be hit smack in the forehead with a nerf dart. It was a little disorienting, but not nearly as disorienting as the state of the room. Someone, _the Mighty Nein of course_ , had arranged the various pieces of furniture into some sort of battlefield.

“Sneak attack!” Nott exclaimed as she moved to hide behind a chair again.

“It’s not a sneak attack, if you say sneak attack,” Fjord shot back, both verbally and physically. His dart hit Nott in the shoulder.

“Essek! Did you come to play with us?!” Jester momentarily forgot her battle cover, and stood up. She was immediately pelted with half a dozen nerf darts from around the room.

“No, I came to study.” Essek held up his books. A dart thudded into its cover and fell lamely to the floor. He raised his eyebrow at Caleb, who gave him an amused smile.

“It is Saturday night,” Caleb said. “As Beau has told me numerous times, you have to take a break sometime.”

An easy smile came to Essek’s face as he chuckled. “Sure, when you are freshmen. My classes certainly require more work on my part.”

“Oh c’mon Essek, we all work our asses off!” Beau said.

“Good.” And with that, Essek left knowing that at least his room would be quiet with all of them down here.

\---

“Ah, Essek, I’m having some trouble with this physics problem.” Caleb was sitting in his dorm room, door open, as Essek walked by. The elf stopped, curious. Caleb gestured to the whiteboard on his wall with a series of equations and drawings on it. “Would you tutor me?”

Essek glanced at the board and raised an eyebrow, considering. “I’ll be back.”

A few minutes later, Essek returned with a bottle of wine and two glasses in hand. Closing the door behind him, he moved to the desk and poured the wine. This was definitely something an RA should _not_ be doing, he mused. Essek passed a glass to Caleb, locking eyes with him.

“I presume you’d get in a lot of trouble for this, if anyone found out, ja?”

“Take it as a sign of trust.” He wasn’t afraid of a little risk. Essek’s serious expression gave way to a soft, easy smile. “Hopefully, I can expect the same trust in return.”

“We are friends, no?” Caleb asks.

“I like that. Friends.” Hmm, he hadn’t ever called anyone a friend before. Essek took a drink at that thought. “So. It looks like you are not considering time in the equation.” One look at the problem was enough for Essek to see what he was missing. Of course, he had numerous years of physics classes under his belt.

“Ah.” Caleb said, looking at the problem. His face reddened slightly. “Sometimes the simplest answer is the easiest to overlook.”

“Remind me, what are you majoring in?”

“Materials science.”

Essek nodded.

“You’re in a research lab, yeah?” Caleb asked.

“Yes, I’m doing a project in quantum mechanics and astrophysics.” Whenever Essek told anyone outside of his classmates this, they always nodded, said “cool,” and changed the subject.

Instead, Caleb said, “That sounds fascinating. Can you tell me more about it?”

As Essek eagerly explained his project to Caleb, he didn’t notice how much time had gone by until nothing came out of the bottle when he tried to pour another glass.

Looking at his watch, Essek said, “Ah I’d better go to bed. I’ve got an exam in the morning.” He’d almost forgotten.

\---

One of the Mighty Nein’s strangest traditions was “Hateful Tuesday” in which one of them would make a list of all the things they hated or things that annoyed them and write it on Caleb’s whiteboard. It was like a presentation mixed with a rant, creating an exercise in cathartic emotional expression. It baffled Essek.

Fjord hated some guy on his old swim team and flirting, in general. (“Oh but you’re so charming, Fjord!” Jester said.)

Nott hated water and when the local hat store was closed. (“But you don’t wear a hat,” Beau said.)

Jester hated restaurants that didn’t offer dessert. In fact, she hated being more than a mile away from a bakery.

Caduceus was reluctant to say he hated much, but after serious needling, admitted he hated some of the pranks his siblings pulled on him. (“But I’ll get them next time,” he said.)

Beau talked for a long time. She hated how arrogant some of her classmates were. She hated that she couldn’t buy a bottle of her stupid family’s wine at the local liquor store because she was underage. She hated her father.

Yasha said she hated public speaking and immediately sat back down.

Caleb, well, Caleb was rather quiet during his turn. He halfheartedly threw out a few answers, like he hated people who hate cats, fidgeted with his sleeves, and sat back down.

Essek had been charged with checking in on his freshmen a few times during the semester. He counted sitting in on these odd presentations as one of those check-ins.

\---

Over spring break, the Mighty Nein left the dorms and went on a road trip together. Jester had mentioned something about renting a van and traveling up the coast, but Essek hadn’t asked for specifics. Now, the dorms were almost oppressively quiet.

Essek studied in his room, but it was harder to focus than usual. He tried leaving the door open for a bit, but that felt weird, even if no one was around to walk by. Or maybe because there was no one around to walk by?

He stared out the window, thinking about what the Mighty Nein were up to when his phone buzzed with a new message.

 **Jester:** Hey Essek!! Do you miss us? It’s really beautiful out here! Beau even taught us how to meditate but I think most of us fell asleep

She sent a picture of the Mighty Nein lounging by a cliff’s edge, looking out to sea. They looked happy.

 **Essek:** It looks like you’re having a good time. I’ll see you when you get back.

The next message was just a series of emojis that may have had some sort of meaning to it, but Essek didn’t bother trying to figure it out.

A twinge of loneliness began to seep into him. He tapped his pen against his notebook, attention returning to the problem before him. Perhaps he would take them up on a dinner offer once they got back.

\---

Essek came back from the lab to find the Mighty Nein had returned from their spring break trip. He heard them before he saw them. It was an awful cacophony of noise that sounded vaguely like music. _By the Light, did they buy instruments?_

Steeling himself, Essek slipped into his room first before following the sound of the “music.” He grabbed a wine bottle, checked himself in the mirror, nervously mussed his hair, and reconsidered his plan to join them a dozen times. _Friends,_ he thought.

He rounded the corner to find them once again sitting in Caleb and Nott’s room. Yasha was playing a full sized harp that took up an entire corner of the room. Caduceus had some strange flute that sounded like a dying goat. And Jester had a toy piano that she was not so artfully laying into.

“Ah, good to see you all returned safely.” The music slowly quieted as they all turned to look at him.

Essek awkwardly cleared his throat and said, “How, um.” He really wasn’t good at this. He had little to no experience with personal conversations. Anxiety rushed through his body. “How... was your trip?”

“We almost died,” Nott said. Essek’s brows shot up.

“There was this BEAR out in the woods! Like who would have thought there would be a _bear_ in the woods!” Jester offered.

“Well actually, I thought there might be a bear in the woods,” Caduceus said.

And from there the conversation devolved into an overwhelming and confusing account of how a bear nearly tore down their tent. ( _Did they really only bring one tent?_ ) This is why Essek preferred one on one professional conversations. He knew what to say then, when he had a real definitive motive for talking to a person, and had prepared a few things to contribute. In a purely social group conversation, he often was at a loss of what to say.

“Um. I have wine?” Essek showed them the Lionett bottle.

“Sweet.” Beau grabbed it and began pouring it into red solo cups.

“So, Essek, I realized while we were gone that we don’t know anything about you! Do you have a girlfriend? A boyfriend?” Jester leaned in close to Essek. He leaned away.

“Yeah, we never see you have any friends come by your room,” Yasha said.

“Well, I don’t really have any friends.” Essek shrugged.

“I mean, you have us,” Jester gestured to the group.

Yeah, Essek supposed that was true. He did have them. A smile quirked at the edge of his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!


End file.
